First Light of Evenstar
by Joannawrites
Summary: Aragorn is called home to Rivendell to track orcs who have taken Arwen, and is accompanied by a warrior-elf called Legolas who has little trust in him. An AU tale of how both Arwen and Legolas came to love Aragorn, and he them. *REVISED*
1. In the House of the Father

*Disclaimer: All characters and places in this story are the creation and property of J.R.R. Tolkien, and I am merely fascinated enough by them to borrow them and try to put them back unharmed, for the most part, when I'm done.

*Authors Note: This is an alternate first meeting of Aragorn and Arwen. I'm aware that Tolkien deals with Aragorn and Arwen's first meeting. However, before I discovered the Appendix to the trilogy, this idea took hold of me, and wouldn't let go. That said, I've kept it as true to canon as I could, but I wanted a better explanation of just how Arwen comes to love Aragorn so completely. This was my first LOTR fiction, though I've written several since, and this is actually a revision of some of the mistakes and finer points of LOTR canon I missed early on, and feel the need to correct before I continue with this story as they have been bothering me. I'll be reposting the revised chapters and then continuing the tale. 

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Chapter One: In The House of The Father

Darkness had moved into the woods, a soft creeping, a low whispering, a slow dying of the light. Long had he walked these woods, indeed all the woods of Middle Earth, and never had creatures that once only gazed curiously taken flight so quickly at the nearly imperceptible fall of his footsteps. The deer had fled from the riversides and the birds' song was muted, as if by some evil will. Even the sunlight no longer pierced the canopy of trees above, no longer fell about his cloaked shoulders. He walked onward in shadow. 

His sword, of late, had been cleared of its sheath often, and against stronger enemies of the people of Middle Earth, of the people who could not defend themselves and so fell under his protection. When he left the wilderness, which had not been often in recent years, there were murmurs of bad tidings, of the awakening of things which had long slept. Things all hoped would sleep on forever. A struggle had begun in secret, but he knew that soon enough it would come to a fight on all fronts and that no corner of the world would be left unscathed. He knew it to be so because those far older, and far wiser, than he had long ago told him it would come to this. What was perhaps more, he knew it because it was in his destiny. These times were his as much as the breadth of his shoulders or the length of his stride, passed to him through the blood of his fathers before him. The _weak_ blood of his fathers, that had failed all the world.

The changing of the world would soon be upon them all, and in the last days a great coldness had spread across his heart. 

Seeking counsel, and fearing the counsel that he might be given, he journeyed the familiar steps to the home of the elves, and the place of his childhood. 

Rivendell. 

Over the last hill he climbed and was rewarded with his first sight of the House of Elrond in many years, the only place where he lay his sword aside. The sun was bowing behind distant cliffs, as if in humble deference to this place of light. 

Something seemed wrong. The edges of the leaves that trembled on the massive oaks and maples, leaves of gold and crimson, caught the dying rays of day and held onto them fiercely, as if flaming at all their edges. Red light spread over Rivendell, and unease drew the skin at the back of his neck tightly in warning and apprehension. All was not well in his place of peace.

Joy of homecoming pushed aside, he quickened his pace and crossed the arched stone bride into the land of elves and though no one stopped his coming, he felt many hidden eyes, suspicious, and in some cases unwelcoming, upon him. He hesitated for just a moment, breaking his long stride. It was a feeling he'd never met here.

Then, in his heart, he heard Elrond's voice, brisk and edged with something he'd never, in all his thirty years, heard there. Fear. 

"Walk easy, Aragorn, but swiftly. You have long been gone but the arrows will never fall about your shoulders from this place," said the timeless voice that seemed to cascade down from the waterfalls, though its source was instead forever his own mind. He had always loved Elrond as a father. "Come, Estel, for I have need of you as never before." 

Within the gate of Rivendell, the elves moved with quick strides absent of the fluid, unhurried grace that was characteristic of their race, and their fair faces were drawn, their lyrical voices clipped and anxious. They watched him move with recognition, but no welcome, and instead, the graveness seemed to darken their eyes further when they fell upon him, as if he carried bad tidings.

He made haste toward the house of Elrond.

There he found Elrond, standing amidst many elves, all warriors from the look of their bows and the finely-made knives hanging ready at their hips. Many were of the house of Elrond, elves he had ridden with before. They all whirled when he entered unannounced, uninvited but by the voice of Lord Elrond speaking within him.

An elf he had not met, with a speed that called lightning to mind, drew an arrow taut against his bowstring and from above it, his eyes flashed, then darkened as they fixed on their target. He had not the look of a soldier, but of an assassin, dangerous and nearly mad with fury.

"Leash your arrow, Legolas, and your temper," Elrond firmly began in the tongue of his people, then looked toward Aragorn with relief. "He is welcome."

With regret, the younger elf lowered his weapon but not his angry gaze. He was unlike Elrond and his kind, with their midnight hair and misty eyes. This one was full daylight, possessed of the gold hair of a rider of Rohan and dark warrior eyes. He stood at the commanding height of Elrond, but was more slender, harder somehow. Younger than most in the room, though Aragorn guessed he'd likely lived an age or two.

"You have invited this young _Ranger_ into your home? This man who walks the woods of all and allies himself with none? In these times you trust a stranger in your house? He is barely a man at all, but a boy!"

"He is not so young as he seems, Legolas." Elrond turned to Aragorn, and spoke in the common language. "And Legolas is not so impolite as he seems. His worry gives free rein to his tongue."

"Many years have I dwelled in these lands with no sight of you. I wonder who is the stranger, Master Elf?" Aragorn murmured easily enough, surprising the elf called Legolas by speaking in Elvish, and doing so with a grace that no mortal man had ever accomplished in his hearing.

"You have been too long in the house of your father, King of the distant Woodland realm, Prince Legolas, and not often enough ventured abroad. This is the Ranger called Strider, a man reared on my lands and a man who has shed blood protecting Middle-Earth against its enemies. If he chooses, he may reveal his true name to you, but I name him friend and more now than even in his childhood, I name him Estel, for hope. He is needed in this hour and has come hither for many days." 

Elrond had spoken quietly, but Aragorn heard the fear in his voice, again, felt it creep far into his very bones.

Aragorn quickly forgot the elf prince and turned to Elrond. "I will save my words of greeting for another time. What has happened?"

"The Daughter of Rivendell is believed to have been taken by dark men and orcs at the will of Mordor," a warrior of Rivendell told him impatiently, and when Aragorn shifted his gaze back to Elrond, disbelief and confusion lowering his brow, he nodded.

Immediately, Aragorn understood the perceptible panic in Lord Elrond's voice. His wife had been taken by dark ones long ago, and now his daughter had fallen into dangerous and harming hands. 

"Mordor?" Aragorn asked after a moment of stunned disbelief. "Has he the power already to capture your daughter then? In your own lands? Has it begun? So soon?"

"The seeds have been sown again, but the shadow is only just beginning to spread." Elrond sighed. "My daughter was coming to Rivendell from the house of her mother's people and the care of Lady Galadriel, her mother's mother, where she has dwelled for long years. Longer years than even you have walked this earth, Estel, but she feels the changes in the world, even as you have felt them, and knows that her destiny awaits her here, in her father's house. She is willful and often restless, my daughter, and she rode ahead of her escort as her journey ended, in her haste to see me. Her horse was found slain not far from the protected boundaries of my lands. Arwen was gone when they came upon the dead animal, and there were no tracks to be found. It was as if she had vanished, they said."

"No tracks? A dark day this is indeed if orcs can now move as if by magic, with no sign of how they come and go! There must have been some hint of their direction!"

One of the escort of the Lady Arwen stepped forward. "I am Neldir from Lorien. I was one of the Lady's escorts. Nay, there were no tracks. For a time we thought perhaps the Lady of Rivendell had run into the forest and escaped, but alas, she was not found."

"If there were no tracks, how do you know it was the orcs of Mordor who took her?"

Elrond answered. "I heard the voice of Galadriel, Lady of Lorien, at the hour of your arrival. She has seen that it is so. The Enemy has awakened as if from long sleep, and he is calling for the One Ring. It has not yet answered him, but the hour grows near." 

Aragorn felt the blood rushing from his face, saw the answering graveness in Elrond's eyes as he continued speaking. "The minions of Sauron are growing and searching, and he believes that the elves know of the ring because of our long alliance with your kind. He believes it is hidden in Rivendell or Lorien. He is not yet strong enough to come for it, or to send a force against the Elves. Instead he will now try to use my daughter, to gain secrets, and to have it brought to him."

Elrond bowed his head, but Legolas spoke firmly, head high. "They will get no satisfaction from Lady Arwen! She will not let herself be used to such ends!"

"No indeed," Elrond whispered, his head still lowered, and Aragorn saw the thousands of years of his life creep upon him, until he looked old and bent. "No, my daughter has the makings of an Elvish warrior. She is full of courage and heart, but I would rather have her meek in this hour. She will take her own life rather than let the Dark Lord use her against me."

Legolas made a sound of grief and fury. "The Dark Lord will never get the chance to bring harm to your daughter! Let us ride for her now! For the Evenstar!"

The other warriors in the room gave a fierce battle cry in the name of the Lady Arwen and made ready to ride.

Aragorn and Elrond alone were silent, and in a moment, elf spoke to man, almost as if he'd forgotten the others in his council. "Galadriel has told me that you have some role in the hunt for Arwen, some part yet unclear to her. She put a darkness on your heart days ago, even as Arwen left her house, to draw you back to me. Something in my own heart both rejoices at your arrival and yet warns me that there is a beginning here which I will not wish to see ended. But I ask for your service now, for no feet know better the soil of Middle-Earth, the dark or the light places, and never was there a better hunter than the Ranger known as Strider."

"And your sons? What of Elladan and Elrohir?" Aragorn asked, looking for the two elves that were brothers to him. "Have they begun the hunt for their sister already?" 

"They are far from home, for we have had reports of orcs at our borders for long months, and they have been hunting them. I would imagine they ride now for home with grim fear shadowing their hearts, but we cannot wait for them."

"Of course not," Aragorn murmured and lowered his brow. He looked toward the doorway as if hoping the twins would appear. He would have liked to have his brothers, elves who had taught him how to hunt and track and fight from the time he was a mere lad, with him in this time when his skills were to be tested, and when his failure might mean the loss of something more precious than he could fully understand as of yet. 

But looking at the fierce and fearful faces of the elves in the room, he knew that indeed the Lady of Rivendell was treasured among all who were present. 

As if reading his thoughts, Elrond placed a hand on Aragorn's shoulder, and it carried the weight of urgency and of faith, and he turned slowly to look into the great Lord's eyes and tried to draw strength from them. "You must now hunt these orcs and wild men as you have never hunted before. The dark lands will forever dim the light of Evenstar. My daughter must not pass into Mordor, Estel. She must not!"

"Then she _will not_ pass into Mordor! I will give you my word and give it to you under the name to which I was born, the name that bears responsibility for the dark days that begin to unfurl. I, Aragorn, son of Arathorn, will bring her back with me, or I will not return from this quest. Never have I met the Lady Arwen, but by my life, I will protect her." Aragorn dropped to one knee before Elrond, the hilt of his sword in his hand as he took his oath. 

The blonde elf from the Woodland realm stepped forward. "There have been whisperings about you for all the years since your birth, Elessar! Heir to the throne of Gondor, indeed! We shall ride together then, young Ranger!" Legolas cried and when Aragorn rose at Elrond's bidding, he thought he saw something like approval in the fair elf's sharp eyes. 

That approval was quickly overthrown by new anger as Aragorn shook his head, and told Legolas, "I shall ride alone as always I have. I will set a course toward the Dead Marshes, and head them off before the Black Gates. Follow me as you will, but I will go faster by myself."

"No man may outride an elf!" Legolas cried. "Not even a King of Men!"

"This one may," Elrond corrected. "It is the only thought which gives me hope, Legolas. Go then, Aragorn, and we will follow as well as we may!"

And so it was that Aragorn left Rivendell, ere the sun had slipped much lower than when he came to the gates. With the determined elf prince not far behind, Aragorn's steed charged into the falling darkness, as if the whips of Sauron cracked at his heels. 

At last, the last fiery shimmer fell from the leaves and gave over to the night.

*

To be continued…

Note regarding "elf-speak": In a previous version of this story, someone asked me if my version of the elves are telepathic. The answer is, well, not precisely, because telepathy is too much of "this world" for that to be a fitting term. I will use this ability of the elves to communicate without physically speaking many times in this story, and I draw the justification to do so from _The Return of the King_, in the chapter titled "Many Partings" where Tolkien writes this of the elves sitting around the fireside: 

"for they did not move or speak with mouth, looking from mind to mind, and only their shining eyes stirred and kindled as their thoughts went to and fro." 

Now, I know Aragorn isn't an elf, but I choose to think of it in a way that the elves, if they desired, could communicate with others outside of their race in this manner if they so desired. And Aragorn, having been reared by the elves and being so close to Elrond, would seemingly be open to this kind of communication, though I wouldn't think he can throw the thoughts himself…As a justification of this sort of thing, I think of the way Frodo hears Galadriel's voice in his head as he enters Lothlorien with the ring. 

* If you would leave a little review if you have any comment, the author will laugh gleefully when she opens her inbox!


	2. The Laws of the World

First Light of Evenstar

By Joanna

Chapter Two: The Laws of The World

Aragorn, with Legolas ever behind him, pushed hard through many nights and days, taking roads known to few, even the elves. On the tenth night they galloped by the keen eyes of the elivish horses and the silver light of a waxing moon encircled with a reddish haze. 

"Blood on the moon. It is an ill omen." Legolas called to Aragorn, and Aragorn too had noticed it but felt his chest tighten in dread to hear such words given voice. 

They had left all the others far behind. Aragorn had been given a young, swift horse from the stables of Rivendell, but Legolas' mount was of long stride and noble heart and would not be outpaced. Aragorn often wondered if some magic of the elves kept the horses running so strong. Had he asked, Legolas might have told him that it was love for the Lady that gave the steeds such fire and will. 

With respect growing with the days of hard riding at each other's elbows, Legolas and Aragorn said little but went forth with grim determination and common purpose.

Aragorn chanced another look at the red light ringing the moon and quietly commanded his stallion, "n_oro lim_!" The horse flattened his ears and stretched his neck out further.

__

Here is a strange one, thought Legolas and not for the first time. This ranger who called himself Strider looked as a vagrant, sounded as a scholar, and rode as a king. It was only in hearing him command his mount in the tongue of elves that Legolas began to see the rulers of old in the young man and began to wonder why he walked the woods alone, with none in his keeping. 

He had been a well-kept secret of Rivendell, Legolas suspected. And with good reason. Many would not welcome the arrival of Isildur's heir.

Dawn was breaking on the eleventh morning when they reached the foot of the jagged mountains that stood between them and the passage to Mordor. The sun was new on the highest peaks, a scarlet wash of light crowning them, but the rays had not yet warmed the two on horseback far below.

"I will go over the mountain. They've a good lead on us, but I must try to head them off and meet them in the wet meadows!" Aragorn told Legolas, pointing to a narrow pass which snaked up the rocky face of the mountain. "If they pass into Mordor, all is lost."

"You cannot take a horse over these rocks!" Legolas cried out, scorn heavy in his words. "Have you led us to this, young fool! An end in the trail?"

"Nay. I will go on foot," Aragorn countered.

"Do you know what place this is? It is Emyn Muil! It is bewitched by the power of Mordor and in it lay the bones of many. Men have oft died there, wandering in impossible mazes until they starved or were driven to madness and broke themselves upon the rocks. The very earth slashes flesh as blades. There is no returning from the Eastern side of this pass. Only the dark ones know the way."

"I know the way," Aragorn said very quietly, meeting the elf's eyes.

Legolas first felt suspicion close in around him, for a man of the light did not so easily traverse the path ahead of them. He contemplated whether Aragorn was a braggart or perhaps an enemy to him for a moment, though the man's gaze spoke of neither possibility. 

Still, Legolas parted his lips to argue against the chosen way, but then remembered the hope that Elrond had placed in the Ranger, the hope that he had been named for as a child. Though it was not his nature to trust so quickly, or so blindly, the young man's gaze did not waver and nor had his strength or will in the last long days.

"As you wish, Estel. I shall go with you then, if it is the quickest way."

"No! We will need the horses for escape on the other side, and the trail is dangerous and unsure. I have not failed here before, but it is a hard way. You must go around, meet with your kinsmen and ride hard to the valley of the Black Gate. If I falter on my way, you will then be there to stop them from taking the Lady into Mordor. She must have hope of help from both directions, the swift and unsure, as well as the sure and slow." 

"Nay, it is folly! The others can go around. I will not leave you to do this alone! What chance have you against a company of orcs? She is my kinswoman and has been a dear friend to me for many hundreds of years! You have never rested your eyes upon her! Would you even know her if you passed her on that narrow trail?"

"I will know her," Aragorn said with sudden vehemence and such certainty that Legolas was nearly silenced but for a new thought. 

"But will she know you? Will she trust in you? And should she? I must go with you. She will know I bring her aid." 

"Legolas, listen!" Aragorn's voice had gone hard as the rocks he would run across, and just as sharp. "You must take the horses and meet me on the other side of this mountain. Trust in me, though it is not your nature to trust in men. We are wasting the daylight that may be our only hope against the orcs!"

"No, Ranger, I will not! Do not speak to me as if I were some mindless servant to you, for I am ages longer on this earth! You speak of trust, yet I know your man's pride is cause for you to seek the glory of the rescue. I shall not let Arwen be risked-" 

At that moment, a voice in Legolas' mind rang out, in fear and in fury, and he knew it to be Arwen's. Amidst her cries, Legolas felt her speak to him clearly. "I cannot escape them and they move quickly. Estel must come."

Aragorn watched the elf-prince's expression of annoyance with him change quickly to one of wrath and helplessness as he turned inward towards his thoughts. When he shook himself out of them again, his air had changed to one of reluctant acceptance. 

Aragorn wondered what dragged the fight from Legolas, but it was not his nature to pry into the affairs of others, and had it been, time was short enough without questions.

"Forgive me. I shall not waste the daylight any longer. I will ride around and meet you with horses and with arrows."

Aragorn nodded, gathered his small bag of belongings and slung it across his shoulders. With his hand resting as easily on the hilt of his sword as if it were some extension of his natural body, he bent his dark head into the wind and began climbing the steep path in long, sure leaps. 

"Aragorn!" Legolas called out when the ranger was some distance above. When the tall man paused and turned, setting his foot upon a rock and looking down impatiently, Legolas called, "you know the minds of these dark men better than I. Will they harm her? She is the greatest beauty of all the days of Middle Earth."

"They may mark her with their hands if she struggles, but she will be otherwise untouched. Even the Wild Men know the laws of this world. To force themselves into an Elven-woman's embrace is to have all the darkness of the world since the dawn of the elves to descend upon their minds. It would drive a man quickly to madness and death."

Legolas held his gaze. "That gives me some hope, but the laws of the world work against her as well. If one of them should take her, he shall steal her light from her, her immortality."

Aragorn knew the laws of the elf as well as the laws of man, and he chafed at the need to be gone to Lady Arwen's aid. Still, he tried to give comfort to Legolas. "I do not think she will come to any harm from them. I imagine they fear her, nearly so much as they fear their master."

Legolas seemed to find some small relief in these tidings. "As well they should fear her. But they shall fear me more when they meet me. Go then, Aragorn. Go and do not fail her. We shall come by way of horse as quickly as we may."

~*~

To Be Continued…

*Note: The laws I speak of at the end of the chapter are my own creation. I do not think that it conflicts with anything Tolkien wrote, but I would appreciate someone letting me know if I am wrong. 

As always, I appreciate all reviews beyond measure!


	3. Sky Called Down

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Chapter Three: Sky Called Down

The sun rose higher as he moved, clearing the last dark mountaintops over Mordor. Rays of light, like stretching fingertips, touched face, shoulder, sword. Not as comforting warmth, but as torch to cheat him out of secrecy, Aragorn thought. He moved above the hills and valleys of the earth, and those far down below, if indeed there were any in the borders of the evil lands, might have only seen the starburst of light thrown out from the hilt of his sword. Might have watched it curiously move in a twisting, rapid pattern up the face of the mountain, like a crazed firefly. Might have rubbed their eyes and looked again, only to find it had disappeared in a quick twist round boulder or cliff. 

He moved at foolish speed, and he knew it to be so. The rocks were as razors, and the trailing, and now shredded, edges of his cloak testified to it. Twice he had been deceived by shadow and had taken missteps. Twice he had fallen because of it, and twice the knife-edge of stone split skin, once of knee, once of upper arm, and both wounds bled freely still. He'd no time to tend to them, and hoped the orcs would not smell the blood of man as they approached each other.

From the highest vantage point of the climb, he paused and searched for signs of his prey, but there was a heavy wood below, before the slimy, silvery glint of sun off the flatlands the streams emptied upon. This place was known as the Wet Meadow to man, and beyond that stretch of shallow wetlands were the deeper, older, and more dangerous, Dead Marshes. He imagined the party was hiding from the daylight in the wood, and the forest obliged them with protective boughs. He hoped to surprise them there before the coming of the night. He had cause for speed.

He felt the pull of Mordor add its evil to that which was inherent in this twisted place as he began the descent. Kicking wind delivered many blows to him, forcing him toward cliffs and ledges, driving dust into his searching eyes, and when that failed to slow him, hurling slivers of rocks at all exposed skin, opening skin at cheek and back of hand. Pulling his cloak hood close round his face, he ran on, more determined now that he saw how much will the Dark One had bent on having the Lady of Rivendell.

At last he came down from the mazes. Abruptly the wind died away, and for a moment he stood and breathed the foul, still air of the swamplands before him. He saw the deceptive traps and undying candles of the dead marshes far ahead, beyond the sheen of sunlight off the Wet Meadow. All of his senses were filled with impressions of rotting things, and he flared nostrils in disgust. He turned his back upon them, and Mordor, and instead hurried toward the wood he'd seen from above.

From on high, this stretch of forest had seemed small, conquerable. Now, as he moved from setting sunlight into cool darkness of the trees, he was forced to admit the difficulty of finding anything in the undergrowth. There was nothing to track, as the orcs had not yet passed this point. It was the disadvantage that cutting in front of them by taking the high pass had cost him. The woods were silent, giving up no secrets. It was not the easy silence of quiet places but an oppressive, threatening silence of watching things that made him hesitant to draw full breath of air.

Closing his eyes, he bent his mind toward the elf maiden he had never met.

He waited and tried to think of how to best find her, wishing for the intuitive powers of the elves he'd long witnessed, where thoughts were thrown across distances as a hand extended toward the meeting of another. 

Aragorn, though he understood the nature and the ways of elves, did not have the natural ability of making his thoughts known to the elves in return. It was something he sorely regretted now.

Yet there, in the dark wood, his wishes were answered as he stood at the toe of a great oak. He heard a voice that he'd not heard before inside of him, in places that had never been called upon. But he knew her. It was the voice of ages, both heavy and light, soft and strong, ever steady in his heart, giving him faith in his course.

"Estel. I feel you near. They sleep yet but will wake soon." 

Renewed as if with long sleep, he started forward with new spirit, and though he had no trail to follow, his footsteps fell surely, ever toward the source of the warmth in his blood that he began to understand was her.

And as the dusk came down, he arrived at their camp, a clearing amidst the dense wood. Circling slowly at first, he observed. Twelve that he could see, seven orcs and five men, sleeping noisily. They had destroyed the clearing, the earth was churned and broken beneath their feet, and they'd hacked limbs from trees for a fire, around which was scattered the bloody bones of some unfortunate prey.

He searched for the Lady, and almost overlooked her. She was tied to a tree with ropes and chains, and a dark orc's cloak had been thrown over whatever elven garment she wore. They had wrapped cloth about her head, in their ignorance, to keep her from using any magic upon them with her eyes or her words. Despite the blindfolds, her swathed head turned slowly in his direction, and he suddenly felt that he was laid bare across the distance. 

He saw as she moved that there was a tight collar about her neck and to it another chain was linked and tightly wound about the tree. 

Seeing one of the elves of Rivendell, and especially this daughter of the elf most dear to him, tethered as a wild and dangerous beast, caused his blood to heat, burning away reason. He very nearly charged forward.

"Careful, Ranger. There is a guard and he is near." Her voice floated into his mind again. The easy timber of it reached through his rage and he withdrew, backing down and looking around for the guard she spoke of. 

The warning from Lady Arwen was fortunate, as the orc walked directly in front of him. He would have charged into the path of the guard, had she not calmed him.

Drawing a knife from his boot, Aragorn stepped behind the orc, caught him in two strides and with a swift, easy motion drew the blade deeply across his throat, loosing a river of black blood. He caught the gurgling and sputtering of the dying beast in his gloved hand when he clapped it over his mouth, silencing him. He lowered the dead guard softly to the ground with a care he didn't feel and went forward. 

Silently he crept to her, but she did not start when he lay a hand upon hers in greeting, or when his bloody knife sliced through the ropes wound about her body. With careful fingers he picked up the heavy chains and disentangled them from the tree, until at last she was free but for the collar about her neck and the hood over her head secured by it. He took great care to be silent, daring to hope they might creep away and not stir the orcs or men, though the dark parts of him wanted revenge for this treatment of the lady.

His fingertips had just grazed the leather noose when he heard movement behind him, too late. There was a sharp cry of warning from the Lady, the first sound of her that reached him through his ears instead of through his heart. A moment later a heavy weight hit him hard across the shoulder blades and sent him sprawling away from her.

He twisted with the speed of a snake and brought the knife he still held upwards and into the throat of a large man, heavy of limb. His enemy shrieked airlessly and collapsed atop him. Aragorn struggled from beneath him and made it to his feet just, barely, in time to clear his sword of sheath and meet the blade of the orc who came for him next.

And so it began for him, and he found himself, back to tree, swinging madly and fighting a force greater than he'd ever fought in his solitary marches across the free lands. He remembered little as the sword sliced through air, through leather and mail and home into flesh. They were falling slowly, falling beneath his blade and his nerves were hot and his eyes fierce, and the bitterness on his tongue was bloodlust.

And then something unexpected happened. The first ray of moonlight somehow found its way through the trees and pooled at the feet of the Lady, who had cast off collar and hood. She stepped forward to stand within the silver light, an orc sword firmly clasped in one hand. In a smooth motion, she shrugged from the orc cloak and it whispered from her shoulders, to reveal a gown of pale, pale blue that seemed first to absorb, and then give back, the light of moon. 

Aragorn, for a moment--or an age, he'd never be sure--forgot his battle and looked at the Evenstar for the first time. Time stilled and shimmered about him as something tangible that could be seized and ripped back. But he would never want to go back from this moment, would never again in his mortal life remember what filled the days before his knowledge of her. 

He was awed by her. She stunned him as all the might of Mordor might not, and for the first time in his life he was aware of a force more powerful than all dark armies, more pure than the silver light of moon, and more hopeful than the first morning of all life. 

She was a creature caught between twilight and dark, forever walking in the dreaming hours, the hours of things impossible and inevitable. She hung in the balance between dying sun's lavender rays and rising moon's silver beams. She was built of classic and ethereal lines, of contrasts of lightness and dark, in ivory skin and hair as black as the deepest night hour, eyes of silvery blue, as shifting light on deep, still water. 

"Tinuviel." He felt the name leave him in a breathless whisper, for he had not drawn air since he saw her.

He thought he'd fallen for a moment into eternal dream, into a vision of what there was beyond this life, of another world where the beauty of it all was nearly painful for the new eyes of the next realm. And yet, he thought that if he gazed upon her for the infinity of an afterlife, never would he be able to look away from such grace and light.

He was moved. Moved beyond all action or thought by the sight of her.

And so it was that he didn't see the heavy blade come down until it was nearly too late. Though he recovered in time to avoid the full blow and to strike at his opponent, it was not enough, and the broad side of the sword made contact with his temple in a glancing blow. A warm spray of blood hit his cheek, throat, eyes.

He went down upon his knees and saw blackness at the corners of his world, might have given over to it but for that source of light before him. Her sword was raised, her eyes burning as she looked to the heavens, and wrath seemed to spill from her fingertips. As she was beauty, she was also strength and peril. 

There was a ringing in his head, so he could not hear the words she hurled at the sky, but he looked upwards. Dumbed and slowed by his blow, he watched passively as the trees seemed to rear back and fling up great arms, opening a passage for the sky she was calling down.

The rest of his enemies closed in upon him for the kill, as he raised his sword reflexively, but weakly, in defense. Dizzy, disoriented, and defeated, he dreamed that from the wheeling stars above, winged horses circled and dove. Upon them were tall conjures of elven solders of old, both beautiful and terrible, and the light shining from them pushed back all the darkness of the wood and blinded his enemy. 

Day had returned.

Aragorn regained his feet and found the strength to defend himself, cleaving the body of the orc who would have ended him. 

There were men and orcs still standing, but the great brightness won, and shrieking and cowering, they turned and fled from the light of the elf soldiers lost in the battles of yesteryear, summoned down from the stars by the light of their most beloved. 

When he and the Lady were alone in the clearing, for just a moment he stood, sword in trembling hand, knees unsteady, and vision still blurring and blackening, though his eyes never left her. 

He was bleeding, from the wound in his head and from several more he'd suffered. The blood ran from him in warm, tickling trails, dropped off his fingertips and jaw.

"Tinuviel," he whispered again, the one thought that made itself known in his throbbing and jarred head. The world took a swift, sharp spin under his boots.

And even as he bent his hard will against it, the sword slipped from his fingers and he followed it silently unto the ground.

~*~

*To be continued…

Note regarding the conjures of Elven soldiers: A little liberty I took, inspired by the horses called out of the river when the Nazgul arrive at the Ford of Bruinen in the pursuit of Frodo. 


	4. Always, She Has Known

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Chapter Four: Always, She Has Known 

Aragorn couldn't quite train his thoughts into sense, couldn't bend them toward memory or plan. Like metal against metal, there was a ringing in his ears that seemed to rattle his very teeth to their roots. He clenched them hard in attempt to prevent their escape. He had awakened in confusion, remained there. Relentlessly, the blasted ringing in his head persisted, and with it knifing pains stabbed against his temple, as if from the inside of his skull. The earth beneath him was churned and broken, and he knew he still lay where he'd fallen. His fingers stretched, searched, then relaxed as they brushed the hilt of his sword.

He might have been alarmed to wake without knowledge of where he was or how he'd come to be there, but for the nearby presence that seemed to guard him, to hold him in serenity and safety.

He quickly remembered her. He couldn't find the will to open his eyes yet, for fear that she wouldn't be there, for fear he'd wake from the dream of her. He could feel her now, still, and wouldn't chance losing her yet.

"I am dead." He murmured with great certainty. "You have come to take me to my forefathers' house in the dead lands."

Her laugh soothed and pleased him and her cool fingers trailed across his brow bone, where the center of his pain pulsed. Instantly the blinding throbbing receded to blurry ache, and he found himself thinking more clearly, found that he didn't hurt as he had. 

Her voice reached him from nearby. "Are you so sure you've earned your place there? In your father's hall?"

He opened his eyes and looked for her now, convinced she was there, but he found that moving was too painful yet. Instead, he studied the woven tree branches directly above him and spoke again to her. 

"Perhaps not. I have come to save you and yet here I lie in your care. My pride is wounded beyond your healing. It is a mortal wound."

Another laugh, like silver raindrops, fell into his ears. "You fought bravely, though foolishly. One against twelve! You have shown your honor and put yourself in great peril for me. There is no shame in that, and it is no great trouble to heal you for it."

"You are to blame for my wounds, Lady," he charged with a hint of a smile emerging through the hard lines of discomfort bracketing his mouth.

"You should not have allowed yourself to be distracted in your battle," she accused, but he heard a smile in her words as well.

There was no irritation in his voice when he returned, "you should not have stepped into the light and taken the breath from my body, as no orc blade might have."

The hand on his brow moved to his cheek, stroked softly, lulling his eyes closed for a moment. When he opened them again, she was leaning over him, and she filled his vision, hiding all else in the world above from him. 

Though the moon had fallen from her and the trees closed back in, she still seemed to shine with some inner light, some bright, hopeful sheen that never faded, but pulsed persistently, age upon age.

"Nay, not Luthien," he murmured to himself, "The Evenstar." 

Arwen smiled and nodded gently.

"I am dreaming then, if not dead. I have walked in a dream since I saw you, a lady made of sunset and moonlight, calling upon the sky. How do I know you as Arwen Undomiel, though I have never had sight of you? Nor you of me."

"But I have seen you, Estel. In a dream I saw you, at the very hour of your birth. All of us in my father's house saw that day, though you were far away. I saw as your mother took you to her breast, and your father wept for joy, and the world of elves once again saw promise in man."

His lips tightened and he grimaced, though she was healing his wounds with her hands and voice even as she spoke lightly to him about a much older scar. He turned his face away from her, and there was bitterness in his tone. 

Old bitterness, for one so young, she thought. 

"There is no promise in man. Man is weak. I am weak. Ask your father if you doubt it." In a moment her fingers touched his cheek, turned his face firmly back toward her. Her eyes met his, and his blood ran both cold and hot. 

This pain was far deeper and not within her skill to repair. But despite the graveness of this hurt, it was in her to try. "You stood alone against a company of Mordor, put yourself before me. There is no weakness in you, Estel. My father would not have sent for you if he thought there was anything but courage and faith here," she murmured as her hand trailed down to rest on his chest. And beneath her touch, his heart beat especially hard, as if straining toward her. 

This was why he'd not been back to Rivendell in so many years. He'd been too busy forgetting both the shadow in his past and the hope that the elves placed in his future. They knew too much of him, and most of all the Master Elf, who had seen him turn his back on his name and the way that was his merely by blood. He'd spilled that tainted blood often in Middle Earth, in penance, but he would not claim the title that would let all know of the sins of his fathers. 

And now the Lady, the Lady of Rivendell, had given him the words that made him want to walk forever alone, just as the words of her father had, long ago, when he'd told Aragorn who he truly was.

"Milady," he began softly, a pleading note in his voice that she cease such talk.

"Aragorn," she interrupted, and said it again, though he winced. Surprise to hear her call him by his given name, as none other than Elrond had, flashed in his hard eyes, surprise at the extent of her recognition and knowledge of him. 

"You are Aragorn. Son of Arathorn. And Isildur's heir." His lineage fell from her lips; in the words was a confidence and nobility he neither expected nor wanted, and a familiarity which unnerved him straight to bone. "I am Arwen."

"I know both names." He said it helplessly, pinned by her persistent gaze. She would give him no quarter, as others might have. She was his match in all things, and he had recognized it at the moment he saw her, orc sword lifted high.

"And which name do you fear more, Milord? Mine, or your own?"

"Your name has been long in my mind, Lady Arwen. For too long I have felt the shape of it upon my lips without knowing why."

"Perhaps it is your own name you should remember, Aragorn," she softly suggested, and the last of his pain faded away as she took her fingertips from his face. It was as if she had drawn all the hurt from him, into herself, and then released it to scatter on the winds. 

"Your name has been in my heart for many years as well, Aragorn. I have never forgotten it."

"It is not a name worthy of remembrance," Aragorn insisted.

"Nay, the name means little. Is it the man who bears the name who has been in my thoughts. But the name is Aragorn, and it is yours to bear, whether you will it or not."

"You do not know the man who carries that name, but you speak as you do!" Aragorn charged her, his words taking on a harder edge because she unsettled him, and he did not like to be unsettled. He did not want her faith in him.

"I do know, Estel. I know you as you know me. As we've always known one another in the deep, quiet places. Our paths will run together from this time and onward."

"You do not know of what you speak! Our paths go very different ways. You are elf. I am man!"

"I am elf. You are _King_ of man. And not even that may keep us apart, Aragorn. I have spent many ages waiting for you Estel. Trust in me, trust in yourself." 

Again her fingertips touched his jaw, trailed down his arm to tangle with his own fingers. Leaning forward, she laid her lips over his, lightly, and the brightness of the stars seemed to fill the clearing again. 

Despite all of his determination no to do so, which was no small force, Aragorn took her hand into his keeping and took her lips as well. He had no power to turn away from her; indeed, his lack of will where she was concerned had just nearly cost him his life.

In a moment she raised her head, though he was not ready to lose the touch of her yet. She looked into his eyes, and spoke to him, without words. Her vow entered into his heart and turned it cold with dread, even as it soared. 

"We shall be together, you and I. I bind myself to you, for the years of the world that are mine, I am yours."

Relief stabbed through him, and he fought it. He had no right to take pleasure from such a vow, no right to accept it. He must not do so, and he took his hand from hers, needing distance. His voice was rarely raised, but now it rang out in anger. Anger because what she promised could not be. "You do not know what you promise! You cannot understand the price of such a promise!"

She did not mirror his anger, but her voice was firm. "I am not a child. Indeed, you are the child here, in years. I know the price, as I know the reward. I know what my choices are and I do not speak lightly. Do not doubt me."

"I do not want your promise. I would not ask you to pay such a price. Indeed, I will not allow it!"

He was restless and annoyed with her now, but Arwen remained at peace. She had known this would be his response. Had always known it as she knew him. He would deny himself that which he desired most because he would never believe he'd earned it. He would never willingly allow himself peace or happiness when his bloodline had denied the world of both. 

There was time yet. Time to convince him that she was right and to show him that he deserved peace, happiness, and the love that she held for him. Though she'd walked the earth for ages, she still did not fully understand how her love for this man had come so strong, and swift, and sure. But she knew enough of the world to realize that there was little reason for fighting it. She loved him. It simply was. And, always would be.

But she also understood that had she all the years of the immortal life she would so willingly forsake for him, it would never be easy for him to let her love him, no matter how much he loved her. He was the most unselfish of men, and for him to take from her, of all things, immortal life, would be perhaps his greatest trial. He would see the taking as a weakness, not as the strength of faith in love that she knew it to be. 

And she saw the blood-stilling fear in his eyes and didn't doubt that he did love her, as suddenly and surely as she had loved him on the day of his birth. He feared his ability to deny her wishes, his ability to deny both of them what would be both saving grace, and ultimately, her demise.

Aragorn sat up suddenly and with gentle hands pushed her aside, standing unsteadily and walking away, not feeling weak so much from the fight with the orcs of Mordor as from her easy words.

"You must not speak of such things again, Arwen!" he said breathlessly, bracing himself against a tree. His whole body was rigid, long lines drawn tense and ready for another battle. "It is impossible."

"When two feel as you and I do, Aragorn, all things are possible," she returned smoothly. She rose as well from where she'd been kneeling, turned to face him with hands folded in front of her, and watched him turn shades paler. "Do not worry so. The time has not come for final choices. Mortal lives are short enough. Even had we both the years of elf-kind, it would not be long enough for us to love. Let us bide what time there is together."

He said nothing. So for a moment they stood, faced off and staring at each other, he warily, she with great patience and greater amusement. 

She took a step closer to him and he backed away in equal measure. She laughed again, that same bright, warm sound so alien in the midst of the bloody clearing. "I have frightened you, the great Ranger called Strider! You tremble before a mere elf maiden!"

She saw that her words struck at his pride and that he didn't like it. He moved restlessly back and forth and his mouth twisted, opened to deny her words, and then closed again several times, before at last he spat out, "of course you frighten me! Nearly out of my life. My brief, _mortal _life," he added with a wry and bitter quirk of his eyebrow. 

She gave him a slow smile, and then waited as he walked back toward her with stilted strides, almost as if against his own will. His legs were still the slightest bit unsteady, but she did him the courtesy of pretending not to notice. She did understand something of a warrior's pride, after all. 

He didn't stop until their breath mingled, didn't stop until his fingers, roughened and scarred from his battles, tentatively touched the warm marble of her cheekbone, slid familiarly down to tangle into the cool silk of the heavy hair at the nape of her neck. He no longer seemed unsteady, but she suddenly felt her own knees run toward water as his gaze, luminous and intense, bore into her own, full of amazement, of uncertainty, of trepidation. 

His eyes were like sword steel, hard and strong, capable of both great coolness and glowing heat, capable of cutting through all else with a swift and potent edge. Capable as a blade of defending or destroying. The quicksilver gleam of those eyes, as if all might shift toward light or dark in the space of a blink, was both intriguing and intimidating, Arwen thought, at least for those who were easily intimidated. She wondered at what things he had seen so young that might cause the shadows swirling in him, the things that might cause him to doubt her offering. How was he so convinced he was unworthy of love, when all that knew him loved him so? 

She said nothing as he searched for, and found, the answers to his questions in her eyes. In return she found her own answers. He was both beginning and ending to her. And everything in between. 

When finally he spoke, his voice was so low, so soft, that even her sharp ears could barely discern the words over the whisper of the wind in the treetops. 

"Yes, you frighten me, Arwen. Because nothing is so terrifying as the hope I feel when I stand here with you. The hope of what may be and the fear that I will lose it. That I _must_ someday lose it." 

"You will not lose me. Always I will be here with you," she promised him again, and when his fingers tightened at the nape of her neck, she willingly allowed her head to fall back into his hand and lifted her chin to meet his mouth with hers, sealing the vow.

They stood there for long moments, or for hours, or days. He lost all perspective on time in her embrace, until he thought he felt the years of her life flowing through both of them, forever and ever.

It was not until a high, thin wailing sounded over the wind, across the marshes and the mountains, that they parted. It was the scream of the dying, of the tortured, of the damned, and simultaneously of the murderer, the torturer, and the ones that condemned. Both evil and pitiful, it rose, ever higher, then grew closer, increasingly louder. On a brisk wind, the sound entered the clearing, and it was nearly deafening as it sought to wrap around every tree in the forest, to shriek through branches and hollows until it filled all the spaces, until it filled man and elf, standing frozen in each other's arms.

Arwen's agony was apparent in her eyes when she jerked in fear and surprise. Never had her ears been subjected to such a foul sound before, and he understood that it injured her more than sword blades damaged him. Quickly, he reached for her, pulling her cheek and ear to his chest and covering the other ear firmly with his hand. She trembled beneath him, and both of her hands wound tightly around his wrist. She held hard to him, almost as if she was afraid she'd be carried away by the terrible sound.

In return, he pulled her even closer, trying to ignore the splitting of his own ears as the sound ripped at them. Chills rose on his arms, his veins gave over to ice water.

When at last the shrieking died and an uneasy silence took its place, he released her and sprinted toward the three tethered horses left by the fleeing orcs. The sound had roused them and they reared and struggled to answer the call of their master.

"What was that evil sound?" she called breathlessly, eyes wide and fearful as she stood paralyzed in her place. 

"The trumpets of Mordor. The gates are opening. Sauron has learned you've escaped and has sent a force out. He's calling all those loyal to him to join the search. They are coming for us and they will arrive quickly and in great numbers." Aragorn told her, and as it might have with another woman, it never occurred to him to lie to her, to try to make the danger seem less that it was. 

She blinked once and then steeled herself, and quickly ran after him, toward the wild, evil horses who gnashed their teeth and struck out with metal shod hooves.

"We must ride fast, and hard, and I fear we cannot wait for your father, or Legolas, or the warriors that follow them. We must ride for the wild lands, and hope to lose them there. These horses must bear us, maddened though they be." 

She still looked so frightened, and that expression seemed so foreign on her brave, dear features, that he paused in gathering his things and laid a hand against her shoulder. "Arwen, we will evade them. We will outride them. Do not be afraid. I will not let them take you."

"I am not frightened for myself." She smiled courageously, and if it was a bit strained, he still appreciated the effort. She placed her hand over his. "I am quick with a sword. It is you I worry for, Ranger. You are easily distracted and prone to fainting. I have not just found you to lose you so quickly. It is not in my plans."

"So I gathered, Milady," Aragorn agreed, and then vowed, "I shall try very hard not to pitch at your feet again, even should an orc blade take my head cleanly off my shoulders." 

"See that you do," was her solemn reply.

Though he could feel the slightest shifting of earth beneath his feet as the dark ones started thundering through the massive Black Gate, he found he still had the heart to give her a roguish smile and that the doing of it lifted his spirits just a bit. And when she gave him a laugh in return, he began to think that it really would be all right.

~*~

*To be continued…

Note regarding the trumpets of Mordor: I had originally thought this was my own creation, but actually Tolkien already had it covered. In _The Return of the King_, in the chapter entitled "The Black Gate Opens," Tolkien writes: 

"There came a long rolling of great drums like thunder in the mountains, and then a braying of horns that shook the very stones and stunned men's ears. And thereupon the door of the Black Gate was thrown open…"

The discomfort Arwen feels at these horns was drawn shamelessly from the Fellowship movie (extended version), in which during the Council of Elrond scene, Gandalf uses the black speech of Mordor and Legolas winces as if he is actually in physical pain due to the sound.

******

*I am going to respond to reviews, because I always like to do that now, but thought I'd wait till I caught up on revisions and then do them together! But in the meantime, thanks so much for helping me see the point in picking up this story again!

Oh, and yes, Legolas is coming back VERY soon, Jasta-elf, I promise, though I should ransom him for a new chapter of The Scruff Factor! 


	5. Things Wild, and Things Free

Chapter Five: Of Things Wild and Of Things Free

A metal shod hoof slashed by Aragorn's jaw, so closely that he felt the heat of the beast of Mordor in the air that broke against his cheek. He had hold of the stallion's reins, but could get no closer due to the clacking teeth and striking legs. The horse's ears were pinned against his head, teeth bared and gnashing. The light in his eyes was red, and he screamed to Aragorn in challenge. 

"Easy friend," he told the animal, voice soft and as unthreatening as the hands he wished to lay upon the tortured steed. "You have had a hard time of it, I know. Your way will be easier now." 

The horse paused for only a moment, but it was enough for Aragorn to close in, to get a firm grip of the headstall and to unbuckle the heavy armor that was strapped tightly about his head, tossing it aside.

Pulling the animal's head close to his, Aragorn looked directly into his eye, letting the horse study him as he did the same. The red light receded and the warm, intelligent brown shone forth.

"We have need of your help," Aragorn whispered softly, laying a hand on the high crest of the black neck.

The horse looked directly at him and then towards Mordor, and he pricked his ears as if he heard another voice upon the wind. And as suddenly as he had stood willing, the animal reared back and struck out again, foreleg glancing off Aragorn's shoulder and knocking him to the dirt. 

Aragorn narrowly avoided being made one with that dirt as the beast's forelegs came down with the intent of crushing him. In his struggle to avoid such a fate, he lost the reins and the horse bolted through the clearing, back toward the East.

As he scrambled up and started after the horse, he heard Arwen call out, and the stallion hesitated in mid-clearing, but another short blast of trumpet sounded in the air and shook the earth below them, and screaming, the animal leapt the dying fire and continued for Mordor. 

"Sauron will use him as a spy!" Arwen shouted at Aragorn, who, however hopelessly, ran after the horse. 

Just before the animal passed through the trees and was lost to them, a tall, fair figure stepped into the clearing, into the direct path of the charging stallion. 

His voice rang out in an unknown command in an unknown tongue, authoritative and persuasive, and none too gentle. Raising both hands high he continued speaking, holding his ground even as the animal bore down on him past the point of stopping. 

"Legolas!" Aragorn shouted and started forward, to presumably collect the body of his soon to be flattened traveling companion. 

It seemed the horse would run down the unmoving elf, as it seemed that the will of both was equally strong though the match of their brawn was not so equal. And at the moment Aragorn knew Legolas would be trampled, the horse threw back his head and sat down upon his haunches and slid through fallen leaves to a trembling, blowing halt. 

He stopped no more than an inch before the warrior who had faced him down without flinching.

Legolas continued speaking to the animal in the strange language, and despite the need for haste, Aragorn was fascinated, listening to the sound of it, a series of soft clicks and rounded vowels that sounded almost as a song. At last, the beast suffered himself to be touched, and Legolas leaned down and brought the breath of the horse into his own lungs, as well as giving his breath to the animal. Finally, the horse lowered his head before Legolas, and in return, Legolas bowed before the stallion.

"There. We understand one another." Legolas told the horse, and then looked with satisfaction to where Aragorn stood frozen in mid-stride, watching with what seemed to be admiration. Arwen was harder to impress, and rolled her eyes a little when she saw he looked for her to be so.

"Where are the others? Where is my father?" she asked uneasily, looking past him and into the dense wood.

"I do not know," said the elf. "For I did not ride after them."

Aragorn met Legolas' gaze, saw that Legolas was staring back at him with raised chin, defiance pouring from him. "It was not in me to leave you to do this alone, Ranger. Though I tried to do as you asked me, I have never responded well to being told what my road is. I turned back after you had gone and set across Emyn Muil. I successfully came down the other side, just as you. You did not take care to cover your tracks from elf-eyes, and it was quite easy to follow you. You left your blood on those rocks and you turned the leaves in the forest with careless feet."

Aragorn thought for a moment of how to respond. In the end, he was glad of the extra set of eyes, and more so for the knife and bow of the warrior. "As for the tracks, I was in a great hurry. If you had not taken your time about following them, Prince of Mirkwood, I might have avoided having my head nearly split into equal halves."

"I doubt there is a blade in Mordor that could accomplish such a feat," Legolas returned, a smile hidden in the corner of his mouth.

The comment startled Aragorn into laughter.

Arwen was not amused and looked from man to elf. "And what of my father and his warriors? How will they know what road you have taken? When your horses meet them without you, they will think you have both been slain. They will try to enter Mordor."

"Can you not make your voice heard to your father now?" Aragorn asked.

"There is too much evil in this forest, too much will against us," Legolas replied before Arwen could. "I sent my mount with a message for your father that they were to continue on their course, approaching us from the North."

"The trumpets have sounded!" Arwen charged Legolas, and when the seasoned soldier flinched, Aragorn knew that Legolas did not need nor want the reminder of the call for evil. "My father and his men will be riding into the armies sent after us. We must ride North to warn them."

"We cannot ride due North, for that is the road they will watch most closely. We must take quieter, and more perilous, trails," Aragorn told her, and he wanted to put his hands upon her again, to comfort her worry for her father, but dared not with the sharp eyes and arrows of Legolas so close.

"And leave my father to ride blindly into danger?" Arwen cried. "I will not do it!"

Legolas smiled and moved to her side, taking her chin gently between thumb and forefinger and titling her angry eyes up to look into his. "Nay, Arwen. Do not let your face bear such strain. We will send one of these horses to your father. We will tell him that you are safe and that we ride into the wild with the Ranger." 

With that, Legolas whistled and the second horse walked gently towards him, lowering his head. As with the first stallion, Legolas bowed low and breathed with the horse. 

He spoke again in that same soft, complex language and as he did so, Legolas unsaddled and unbridled the horse, running a hand over the horse's neck. At last, Legolas stepped close and whispered something into the horse's ear. When he moved away, the horse wheeled and galloped North.

"What language is this? I have never seen this magic of the elves," Aragorn asked, fascinated into uncharacteristic curiosity.

Arwen smiled at him. "It is not magic. It is the ancient tongue of the Mearas. A secret the elves taught only to the Horse Lords of old. Few know of it."

"And why was I never taught it, when I have been shown all the other ways of the elves?" Aragorn wondered.

"Your tongue could not hold such words." Legolas said, with no small amount of superiority.

Aragorn raised an eyebrow and repeated the command Legolas had given the first horse with precision. Obediently, the horse that had moments before tried to kill him, turned from Legolas and walked to stand before Aragorn, dropping his head before him. The remaining animal pulled free from his tether and also came to stand with Aragorn, who bowed as Legolas had and then stroked their necks and spoke his own words to them.

Arwen caught Legolas' annoyance and could not help but smile. She loved the Prince of Mirkwood very much, for they were of an age and had passed through their youngest years together, playing their games, pretending to be great warriors, and men, monsters and horses. At one point, there had been talk among their houses of a betrothal, and though she had always felt as if she waited for another unknown to her before this day, she deeply loved Legolas, though not in a way that would have led her to bind herself to him for all eternity. 

However, the prince was perhaps more full of bravery than suited his needs, and he had not often had dealings with races other than his own. Arwen thought it fitting that his first experience with men was with the finest and most capable of them all. She rather enjoyed his bewilderment.

"No, Legolas, Estel's tongue can hold whatever language he chooses, for he knows nearly all of them, and those he does not know he has great capacity for. Estel, you were not taught the horse-tongue because you were already gifted in the handling of horses. You have your own way with them. You did not need ours." 

"And what did the command that you gave the charging horse mean, Legolas?" Aragorn wondered as he tightened the saddle of the second horse, deferring to the elf because he could see Legolas was still a bit bothered by his success at the ancient horse language. Fearing he could not hide his regard for the Lady from the sharp-eyed elf for very long, Aragorn had cause to attempt to keep himself on the feathered end of Legolas' arrows. 

"You cannot command a horse to do anything, Aragorn," Legolas said, and his mood was improved in the giving of the lesson, in the willingness of the man to learn from him. "For a horse has a spirit and a will of his own, and he is your equal. Nay, we do not command him but we rather ask him, we reason with him."

"And what reasoning made him agree not to grind you into dust?" Aragorn asked with a smile as he stroked the animal that had nearly run Legolas down. The first words out of the elf's mouth had not sounded like a gentle request for help.

"Aye, well, some arguments are stronger than others, are they not?" Legolas grinned in return. "But as for the rest, I told him he had been deceived by Sauron. For horses have need to be free, and the Dark Lord has given them wildness and masked it as freedom. I explained to the horses that they have been enslaved by the dark, and I released them from the spells placed upon them. Now they understand that being wild is not the same as being free."

"If it were only so easy to convince the armies of Mordor of the same!" Aragorn murmured. 

"They will bear us," Arwen said, as she left Legolas' side and came to where Aragorn and the horses stood and extended her hand below the animals' muzzles in greeting. "We must be away quickly, so you said, and stop speaking of things both old and irrelevant."

"You are right, as usual, my dearest friend," Legolas smiled. "We have lingered here longer than is wise. Come, Evenstar. You can ride with me."

Aragorn met Arwen's eyes, might have smiled but didn't dare as she told Legolas smoothly, "Nay. I will ride with Aragorn. Should his mount feel the pull of his old ways, I know the horse tongue as well."

"And yet you didn't see fit to utter it while I battled with the beast?" Aragorn muttered, but waved away any response she might have given. "Never mind. I did not wish to be saved by you twice in one day. My pride still walks the edge of a blade."

"You said Aragorn needed no help where horses were concerned," Legolas reminded her, a gleam of suspicion sharpening his eyes as he watched the meeting of their eyes, saw the intensity there despite the easy banter. 

"Are you frightened to ride alone, Prince Legolas?" Arwen teased him. 

It was the right tactic to take, because though he knew he was being manipulated by the Lady, who was too quick by half and had always, always outwitted him in games, Legolas felt resentment at the implication he was scared of anything. More especially so at the implication made before the man with the sharp eyes and the face as impassable as stone.

"Ride with the Ranger, then. Make sure he does not topple from the saddle and slow us all down."

Legolas called one horse forth and turned to mount him, and when he did so Arwen squeezed Aragorn's hand as she passed before him, victory in her eyes, and swung easily upon the horse.

*~*~*

Note regarding Horse-speak: Fabricated in my mind, I think, though every time I think I've made something up, I find it somewhere in the trilogy. I am fascinated by the Mearas, like Shadowfax, who clearly are intelligent beings and have a will and mind of their own, so I gave them and their descendents a language too, sort of an old primitive language that few know. I draw the idea from one bit of _The Return of the King_, where Legolas sings to Arod to encourage him to travel the Path of the Dead:

"But Arod, horse of Rohan, refused the way and stood sweating and trembling in a fear that was grievous to see. Then Legolas laid his hands on his eyes and sang some words that went soft in the gloom, until he suffered himself to be led…"

I like to think that Legolas sings to Arod in this language. 


	6. Above All Men

Chapter Six: Above All Men

They traveled fast, southwest, through the woods, across plains, and finally began climbing into the hills that rolled up and broke upon the great mountains like waves. It was the start of their fourth night on the trail, and they had ridden under moon and sun. There was no time for rest, for all three sensed their pursuers gained rapidly, and twice now they had been forced to defend themselves against small parties of orcs, who had come at the sound of the trumpets to stand in their road. 

Their only hope lay in the highlands, where the servants of Sauron could not track them over rock. It was land unknown to Aragorn, Arwen, and Legolas, but the enemy was pushing them hard into it, and there was no choice but to keep going forward. The host behind them was too great to risk turning back and trying to find more familiar roads.

They were all weary. Aragorn realized that soon his man's strength would fail him. He felt his mind straying toward sleep, and several times his fingers had loosened until he almost lost his reins. Arwen's arms grew weaker around his middle, her cheek rested heavily against his shoulder blades. Legolas' head seemed to drop lower with each passing hour. None of them had taken any rest since Arwen had been taken, and very soon the limits of physical and mental exhaustion would drag them all down from their saddles. 

The black horses had run with great heart in their new freedom, but now they grew weary and stumbled often, and to push them much further would be the death of them. 

Still, they had to keep riding, looking for some place to pass the daylight in safety. Though the orcs would not give chase under the sun, there were still the wild men of the South, and those of the East, to worry about. The Haradrim, or Southrons as they were called by most, whom Sauron had been grooming as his own slaves, moved tirelessly, maddened by fear of their master and their own lust for blood. 

Aragorn knew something of these men, had seen what they were capable of. Long had they been enemies to Gondor, indeed to all free peoples. They were skilled in torture and they were murderers who enjoyed their trade, and should they lay hands upon Arwen, he doubted seriously she would live to see Mordor. Even fear of the Dark Lord would not save her from harm, for they enjoyed nothing more than the destruction of things beautiful and pure. He didn't think Arwen would _wish_ to live after an hour in their company.

*

They reached the mountains, where the ascent became more perilous and the horses more weary and unsure of their steps. Finally, Legolas and Aragorn made the decision to continue on foot, to take paths that no horse might climb. 

Arwen couldn't help noticing that Aragorn's arms trembled with weakness as he helped her down from the back of the horse, and that his fingers shook as he unbuckled the animal's bridle and uncinched his saddle. Though she and Legolas could have perhaps kept on for another day, she saw that Aragorn could not, though he would have died at their feet before saying so.

She looked to Legolas, and saw that he also took in the state of the young man. Instead of scorn, though, her friend was looking at Aragorn with concern and perhaps a little admiration. 

"If you can find it in you, old friend," Aragorn told his mount, heedless of the poignant look that Legolas and Arwen exchanged behind his back, "run for Rohan where you will be given welcome and respect. And perhaps draw some of our enemy away with your tracks as well."

He stroked the horse as Legolas bid goodbye to his own mount, and the stallions tossed their dark heads and stood together as their liberators started up the mountainside. They then turned and fled with purpose, galloping back down the trail they'd come, as black and shift as shadows. 

"Will they fall into their old ways?" Aragorn asked breathlessly. "Will they return to Mordor?"

Arwen shook her head, eyes shining in the moonlight when she glanced over at him. "Would any slave willingly return for torture when the air of freedom has entered his lungs? They will run for Rohan and die before letting the enemy catch them again."

"We must find shelter soon," Legolas called from a few paces ahead of Aragorn and Arwen. "We all must have some rest."

Arwen smiled a little, surprised and pleased that Legolas had spared Aragorn his dignity by acknowledging his own need for a stop to the running.

Aragorn sighed in relief. "Let's move to high ground and find a camp with a position where we can look out. We need to see the enemy coming, for we cannot fight them. If they follow us here, they must be on foot as well, but we are not likely to outrun them. There is only hope in secrecy."

Legolas and Arwen followed Aragorn up steep and dangerous paths through rocks and trees, pushing past the very limits of the man's capacity as the elves neared their own limits. They were all faltering when they broke from the tree line. At last, as the sky gave over to steel gray streaks in the east, they came to a wide shelf of solid rock. It looked over miles and miles of Middle-Earth. The valleys below still lay in night, like black cradles held by mountains on all sides, broken only by the faint glimmering of lanterns in the towns and lonely outposts. 

Arwen felt as if she'd left Middle Earth to sail above it. 

The rocky plateau backed against a steep cliff face and there, mercifully, they found a small cave in the mountainside, its mouth shielded by several fallen boulders. The entrance was just wide enough for them to squeeze into one by one, and it would leave them out of the sight of their enemy. It was much better than any of them had hoped to find.

They had but one blanket, which they lay upon the hard stone floor of the cave. They ate lembas from Legolas' pack and drank the clear water of a nearby stream. Legolas volunteered to take the first watch, and though on another day Aragorn might have argued with him, or at least made the same offer, he was simply too weary. 

Legolas stepped from the cave and Aragorn and Arwen were alone within it. For a moment there was a sort of awkward silence between them, for they had not been free of Legolas' speculative eyes for days, and all their conversations, when there had been time or energy for words, had been guarded.

Aragorn smiled, for he could just make out her silhouette, dark gray against the darker walls of the cave. 

"You look very well, to be on the run from Mordor," he whispered, and because he had for so many days longed for the touch of her again, his hand extended across the darkness, found the cool smoothness of her cheek, and he rose to kiss her briefly.

Her lips curved beneath his in a smile. "How can you tell how I look? You do not have elf-eyes, Estel. You can see nothing in here. Admit it." 

"Yes. But your shadow is very lovely," he replied, perhaps sheepishly. 

"You are out of your head with weariness, Ranger. I am dirty and tired. And you, however dear, look exactly as if you have been running for many days with Mordor at your heels. Sleep now."

She kissed him again, and then pushed him gently, forcing him down onto the blanket. He willingly collapsed, and then sighed as she moved to lay flush at his side, her head upon his shoulder and her hand stretching across his chest, fingers curling over his heart. 

It gave him a little start, how naturally she fit there, as if he'd been carved just so she would match him precisely. It gave him such comfort, and made him feel whole, and he wondered how he'd ever passed a night peacefully without her. Somehow, he was aware he'd never be easy without her in the night again. 

"What will you say to the other elf, if he sees us so?" Aragorn wondered, though he stretched his own arm beneath her head to pillow it, and brought his other hand to cover the one she rested on his chest. He couldn't care at the moment what Legolas might say.

"That it was the cold that drove us together."

"The elves do not feel the cold," Aragorn reminded her.

He felt as much as heard the smile in her words. "No. I will tell him you were chilled, not I."

She felt the rumble of his laugh below her ear even before it escaped into the darkness, softly. "The elf is already convinced I am of no use at all. This shall seal my fate with him."

She laughed too, nuzzled closer to him so that her forehead was just below his cheek. He turned his face into her hair for a moment, wanting so much more, knowing he could not take it. Not yet. It was the greatest test of his will he'd known.

"You are wrong, you know. I have known that other elf for most of my life. Legolas holds you in high regard, and it startles him that he does so. He did not expect to find respect for a man. It confuses him, and he is not used to feeling uncertain about things. You have thrown his balance."

Aragorn smiled, found it so easy to do when she was near, touching him. "Well, he may revise his opinions when he sees me clinging to you for warmth."

"Ah, but I said that is the excuse we would give him, Estel. Not that he would believe it. Legolas is no fool, after all. Well, a great majority of the time he is not. He has his moments."

*

Aragorn felt as if he'd been sleeping for days and days when at last he slowly became aware that the ground below was not a bed, but solid rock. His whole body felt sore and unstretched, as if he'd slept very long and hard without moving. 

  
Arwen was still curled to him, resting peacefully. He wondered at how refreshed he felt, wondered if it was having her so close that had made him completely give himself to oblivion, or if it was simply the hard search for her coupled with the long days of fleeing. 

The crimson glow of sunset was streaming into the cave, and she was creature of twilight at the moment, not of moon. Her skin was bathed in golden and pink rays, long lashes lay upon her cheek, casting cool shadows on her glowing skin. Her fingers were tangled trustingly in his own, and on her mouth was a curve that was almost a smile. He watched her and his heart swelled, beating against the front of his chest. Would he ever grow tired of looking at her? He doubted it.

She woke briefly as he slid from beneath her hand and eased her head down upon his cloak instead. "Sleep a bit yet," he whispered, brushing a long strand of midnight hair away from her cheek. She smiled sweetly in response and lowered her eyelashes again.

He stretched, once outside the cave and looked around, finding Legolas standing on the rocks above the cave's mouth, eyes relentlessly searching the landscape.

"You should have awakened me sooner. I have slept for more hours than my share," Aragorn called softly to him, taking a place on one of the lower rocks and looking out over the land companionably.

"It has been quiet. You had more need of rest than I," Legolas replied with honesty. 

"I did, but I have had it now. This is the safest place we will find, " Aragorn told Legolas, who nodded in agreement. "We can spare a few more hours for you. I'll wake you when the moon is high. Rest now. You've earned it." 

The fact that Legolas issued no protest at all told Aragorn just how in need of the time he must be, even more than the slowness of his movement when he climbed down. The elf nodded his thanks as he passed Aragorn and disappeared into the cave.

Alone, Aragorn's gaze cut quickly to the West, and there he met what he had known was there all along. The realm of Gondor. He'd never seen Minas Tirith that he could remember, although perhaps he'd passed through it as a young child, before he could recall. He looked carefully around for any sign of danger, and then left the cave to walk across the flat field of rock and stand at the precipice, looking at the world of men below. 

For the first time in his life, he faced the path that was his, and wondered if he had the strength to journey it.

*

Some time after Aragorn had left her, Arwen stirred and awakened to find that Legolas now lay nearby, resting deeply. He seemed aglow in the setting sunlight that found its way into the cave and for a moment, she could not help but smile and watch him. He was of such fine, noble features and fair appearance, that she did not wonder why he was the gleam in many an elf maiden's eye when he was about. Arwen had never been able to deny the beauty of Legolas, but nor had she been able to deny that it did not tempt her as it did some. Perhaps it was because they had played together so often as children, with her brothers, that he had simply become as dear as a brother to her. She was not sure, but she had always known that Legolas would never hold her heart in a way that Aragorn already did.

At one time, there had been hope in both their families of a marriage between Legolas and Arwen, and from Mirkwood, the desire had been so strong to see such a match made that Legolas had gone so far as to ask for her hand when they were both of an age to be wed. Arwen had always suspected it was more duty than anything that had pushed Legolas into asking, for though there was great fondness between the two of them, it was of a gentler, quieter sort than what she felt for Aragorn even at their first meeting. She had sensed both relief and bruised pride when she had politely declined the offer, though she had never really given him the reason why she did so.

Now she understood her reasons fully, and she feared that soon she would have to make him understand as well. As soon as possible, she decided. She did not look forward to it, and he was resting so peacefully that she left him to it and quietly went to find Aragorn.

****

To Be Continued…

Note: In the Fellowship movie, I enjoy the conversation between Boromir and Aragorn at Lothlorien. Boromir asks Aragorn if he's ever seen the white city, to which Aragorn replies, "long ago," or something similar to that. Though Aragorn did serve as a well-loved Captain to Ecthelion II, and likely went to him in the city, I decided that maybe this could be the first time Aragorn saw Minas Tirith, and the memory in his eyes when he answers Boromir. 


	7. He is Come

Chapter Seven: He is Come

*****

Gondor. 

For the first time in his life, Aragorn looked upon it. From far away and far above, he was free to survey it as he wished.

It was his homeland by rights, and his gaze touched every mile of it. It lay open and seemingly welcoming, as if all the leagues before him awaited some great destiny. As the sun lowered towards the snow-dusted mountains and ridges and caught up in the mist that rolled up out of the great river and through the valleys, the sky and earth both tinted red. 

He shivered suddenly. He was no prophet but he knew of the land's destiny because it was also his own. These fields would bleed. Men would pay for the endurance of evil. 

Soon.

The crimson shrouded hills held him rooted, the wind whispering promises that must be kept. Only with blood could the land be appeased of the wrong that was done by one who had long ago ruled it. His own ancestor. His own bloodline. The realm, and that wrong, ran in his veins. This was the place where all of his footsteps across the earth inevitably led him. He did not want this place, these people, to be his. 

But they were, and standing here, he could not deny it, and what he wanted mattered little.

He wanted Arwen. And peace. And the right to live a quiet life loving her. Strange how quickly his heart's desire had changed. Before he'd arrived in Rivendell, all he'd ever wanted was to be left alone to wonder the earth, and to provide for other people the kind of peace he now knew he wished for himself. And for her. 

He looked to Minas Tirith. 

It was a proud city, was his first thought. Stern and imposing there at the base of the mountains, as if it held those peaks aloft upon its strong shoulders. Though it was called the White City, this evening it too seemed to blaze with a threatening hue, as if the white stone walls soaked in the bloody sky. 

Even the great Tower of Ecthelion, which the lore told to be a glittering silver spike that soared above the kingdom with banners snapping in the winds from the mountains, seemed awash in bloody light.

Aragorn wondered if his eyes were cheated or if the Tower did in fact resemble a great sword that had pierced the sun and loosed a torrent of blood from sky. 

He saw horsemen riding across the plains toward the city, imagined he heard a faint note of a trumpet welcoming them home. The horses seemed to stretch their necks further and pound the ground with renewed vigor as they approached, and the riders raised their hands to the Tower Guard in greeting as they passed into the walls of the stone city.

He could just barely see them, an unheralded spectator from afar. Would he ever know joy of coming home to such a place? Would they welcome him there? It was strange for him to imagine living in a city at all. He was more accustomed to sleeping in the wild than in a tower of stone. 

"You are aging before my eyes," her soft voice sounded behind him, and he didn't turn right away, but waited for Arwen to come to him. 

She didn't touch him, though she would have liked to, because she sensed his thoughts were his own and she did not wish to intrude. She looked out over the land and waited for him to say what he would. 

Aragorn glanced at her, and felt his heart suspend when he saw the red wash of light on her face. Fear, like the bloody spear that soared above the city, drove into his chest. She would know the violence, and the terror, and the death, and she would be hurt by it. It would not be only men to pay the price of Isildur. 

He looked away to gain his composure, and when he glanced back at her again, either the sun had shifted or his mind had, for the light upon her was not so sinister.

"That is my city," he told her, and there was no arrogance in his tone. In fact, it was regret she heard there.

"It is a beautiful city. A noble city. But it will be more so when you reclaim the throne there," she said with sureness.

He pressed his lips together. Her unwavering confidence disconcerted him. 

"I asked you when we first met which name you feared more. Mine, or your own. I think I have my answer now. You stand fast as the trumpets of Mordor blow in your ears, but you are terrified of who you are," she sighed softly. "I don't understand."

"Yes, Lady, you do understand," Aragorn disagreed. "I am a coward in this matter."

Her voice was sharp, sure. "You are no coward, Estel. It is not the time to seize your destiny. When it is, you will know it. The world will know it. You will be King, and that will be your realm. And you will lead men to such glory as to last to the ending of the world. Under your banner, men will come to rule the Earth."

"And what good shall come of men ruling the earth," Aragorn murmured, "when there are those so much wiser and more honorable?"

"Men can be both wise and honorable, Aragorn. You have never dared to look or hope for that though," was her answer, and he recognized that it was the truth. She moved closer to him and put her arm around his waist. His own arm moved instinctively about her shoulders as she took her place at his side, arrow fit to bow. "We shall live there together, someday. We will be wed at the foot of those mountains in the great city. I shall bear your heirs there, and we shall watch them grow strong and proud. You will be loved, Aragorn, and loved well. By your people. By your armies. But never more than by me."

"You move me, Lady," he said very softly, leaning to rest his head against hers as they looked down at the city. The bloody light was slipping from the walls, and the pure white was beginning to shine through again. White for peace. White for hope. Only the tip of Ecthelion still glowed red, as if great drops of blood clung to the end of a blade. 

"You must realize Arwen, there is much that could happen between this time and that," Aragorn protested, not sure what moved him to break the peace between them. In the end, he decided it was the terror of wanting her words to be true that made him try to reject them. It would be too grave a blow to be denied her foretelling. He dared not hope in it too much, some superstitious fear warned he would wish it away.

"Oh, yes, there will be deeds both great and terrible, deeds of the smallest and the mightiest, and all of our hearts will break and mend and break again before the end. There will be many hard choices. But this, for me, is not one of them. Though I was forewarned it would be my greatest trial, I would be with you for as long as I am given and suffer the consequences. It is an easy decision, far more than I had hoped it would be. Harder times and choices lay ahead for both of us. There is much to endure. But the victory at the end of the road will be all the sweeter. And the love will abide through all."

Aragorn turned away from Minas Tirith and faced Arwen, holding her face between his hands. Her eyes, luminous and full of promises, did not leave his. 

"They have given me the name that means hope, Arwen. But I take all of mine from you. From this day and onward, I do all things in your name, and I shall never stop trying to prove myself worthy of you."

"The only evidence of your worth I ever needed is in your eyes, Estel. In your heart. In my heart. You are worthy."

Aragorn leaned to kiss her, not at all confident he could end it with that. She responded in kind, rising against him, inviting him to take what he would, challenging him to give her back as much.

He knew he must end it, and soon, and he stepped away from her. He could not though, could not leave her be, though his mind screamed vaguely around his rushing blood to do just that. He reached for her again, uncertain of where it would stop, or if it would. 

He never got the chance to test his restraint, for there came the shriek of an arrow an instant before white pain grazed the wrist he stretched toward her. Another arrow screamed through the air in its wake and planted itself at the toe of his boot, as if to prevent him from taking a step forward.

He reacted with blind reflex, pushing Arwen behind him and drawing his sword in one motion, expecting to meet a party of Southrons or Easterlings, and hoping the arrow that had grazed him had not been dipped in poison. 

Instead, he was greeted by a sight perhaps more fearsome. Legolas was coming forward, another arrow at the ready, and murder in his eyes, leaving Aragorn little doubt that he'd seen his embrace with Arwen. 

And that he was not best pleased by it.

"Legolas!" Aragorn growled as the elf kept coming straight at him, dangerous rage twisting his face, "you might have hit her instead of me! You might have killed one of us."

"I intend to kill one of you. But it will not be with a single stroke. If I had wanted you dead so quickly, you would not be bending words with me at present, Ranger. No, your death will come slowly, but it begins now." 

"Legolas, stop it! Put your bow down!" Arwen snapped and moved in front of Aragorn. 

"Step aside, Arwen, and I shall make him beg for death for laying a hand upon you!" Legolas snarled in a way that despite himself made Aragorn a little uneasy.

"You great fool! Did you not see that my hands were upon him as well?" Arwen shouted, but Legolas continued coming forward as if he didn't hear her, and Aragorn glanced backwards at the cliff behind him and wondered which way might be the easiest death. 

Aragorn gently pushed Arwen aside and started forward, holding up a hand and noting with irritation that blood dripped from the wrist Legolas had grazed with his arrow. "Legolas, if you will listen for a moment there is an explanation that perhaps you are entitled to hear and…" 

Aragorn broke off on a yelp as Legolas released his arrow and it plowed into the ground at the side of Aragorn's foot, pinning his boot to the shale and pinching the slightest bit of skin as it did so. 

"Curse you!" Aragorn hissed as he gripped the shaft and ripped it from both leather and his own hide, hopping on one foot as that wound began flowing with blood too. "Put the bow down!" 

Legolas let another arrow sail, meeting his eyes with defiance. This one aimed for his other foot and Aragorn quickly leapt backwards, feeling as if he were being forced to dance for the elf. Anger began flowing through him, and soon he felt his face go hot and red with it as he was pushed past patience.

Legolas reached back to pluck another arrow, and taking the only chance he had, Aragorn rushed him, leaping across rock and hitting the elf somewhere around the middle. Both went sprawling hard and rolling in a tangle of wildly flying fists and knees across stone.

The next moments were a blur. Faced with what seemed a thousand years of pent-up elf rage, Aragorn could do little but try to block the worst of the blows, kicks, and if the sharp pinch on his shoulder was what he thought it was, bites, and give a little back in return. 

Legolas' fury was greater though, and at last he pinned Aragorn and put both hands about his throat until Aragorn felt his eyes bulge and his vision blur as the blood trapped itself against his temples. He thought his face might rip apart at the seams.

All the while Legolas was growling, "you seem to have forgotten you are mortal, putting your hands on an elf-maiden. And not just any elf-maiden, but the daughter of Elrond, who has put his trust and hope into you, who has loved you as a son! You do not deserve such an easy death but for the unending life of me I cannot find the will to release you!" 

Aragorn's vision was wavering now, but he could still see the furious face above him. He knew the expression upon it well--it was that of a hunter close to the kill 

And then, suddenly, Legolas' face went from one of wrath to one of shock when a small rock was hurled with considerable force at his forehead. It plowed into the wide space just between his eyes and then bounced away.

It might have been a boulder for the elf's reaction. His head snapped backwards and his body followed, reeling as he toppled off of Aragorn, collapsing at his foe's side and staring at the sky as one who has been stunned. 

In a moment, the serene source of the dispute appeared above, looking down at them both with a marked lack of concern and what some might have called amusement.

"Curse it, Arwen! You know I hate it when you do that!" Legolas hissed, rubbing the large red spot on his forehead tenderly. 

"And you know I only do it when you are being unreasonable!" Arwen returned calmly. "You would have killed him, you fool, without giving him the chance to speak!" 

"No, I wouldn't have." Legolas snapped and gave Aragorn a side-long glare without picking up his head, which was returned in similar fashion. "I wouldn't deny your father that pleasure."

They lay there for another moment, regaining their breath and staring up at the darkening sky and the maiden who watched them with a cross between scorn and pity. 

At last, she said without preamble, "Legolas, I love Aragorn and he loves me. I know it sounds folly, but it is not. Nothing has ever made more sense to me…" 

And so Arwen explained to Legolas what she should have told him from the first, so that just such a scene as had occurred could have been prevented.

Legolas lay in stony silence. He looked mutinous still, and furious, his eyes roving from one to the other.

At last, Arwen sighed wearily. "Can you not understand? It is something I have always known, and was sure of when I first saw him Legolas. It is my choice, and a simple one it is. It gives me more joy than you know. More joy than I have ever felt before. It is right and it is good and it is not something that is open for disagreement."

Legolas glared past them, into the dusk. Finally, he gathered his feet, standing over Aragorn, but finding that he was not able to bring himself to look at the man. "You would diminish her and take her for your own. Why would I expect less of a man? You would take her life from her to have her at your side and leave her after your death to despair. You do not understand love as I understand it, Ranger. And I pity both you and the Lady for it."

With that he stalked to the cave, and left Aragorn there, pondering the truth that was undeniable in his words.

"I should speak to him," Aragorn said at last, and he could not look her in the eye. 

"No, let me," Arwen said softly and left Aragorn there on the rock as she went after her friend. 

***

"Fool!" She accused Legolas quietly as she rushed into the cave and seemingly filled it, like a cold, bitter wind.

"You do not even know him, Arwen!" Legolas charged her. "What would your father say to such behavior!"

"My Father would be more ashamed of how you have acted just now than of anything I have done!"

"I am not the one putting myself in needless danger, Arwen! I am not the one who proposes to waste my life and turn my back upon my people!" Legolas accused, fury and fear for her decision twining in him until he could not separate one from the other. The Evenstar was decisive, and he knew already there was no force that could reverse her decision now, and that made him feel as if he was failing her, her father, and her people. 

"Can you not understand that one can never waste a life in loving?" Arwen murmured softly, and tears rose up in her eyes and glittered, even in the shadows of the cave. "Can you not understand that for ages, I have felt so alone in this world and that now that I understand what it means, what it really means to love and to have the love of this man? That I cannot bear the thought of losing him, of being so alone again? And that even though I know I must lose him, I would rather have the time he will be given than all the rest until the ending of the world?" 

Her tears undid him; they always did. And if they were still young elves, he might have accused her of taking advantage of this weakness of his, but just now, he recognized that she had fear and fury of her own, that this man who she thought she loved would one day, or any day, die. It was unfair and cruel, and already beyond her control. The fight fell from him and his shoulders relaxed. His fists unclenched.

"You were never alone, Arwen, and you never would have been so long as I drew breath," Legolas told her at last, softly and without pride. "You won't be," he corrected.

She came forward to him then, and placed a hand against his heated cheek, felt the last anger drain from him as she did so. She gathered what thoughts he gave her with his eyes, words that would have been too hard for his hurt feelings and the old scar upon his pride.

__

This is why you did not want to agree to a marriage with me. You knew of Him.

She spoke aloud. "Yes, dear friend. For though I love you deeply, I have always been destined for another and he is come."

__

I would have loved you through the ages, Arwen.

As I will love you through my life, Legolas. But it was never this kind of love between us, and until you know it, until you feel what it is I speak of now, you will not understand. But I promise that when you are touched by the destiny of your heart, you will know it, and all will be made clear of you.

He is but a man, Arwen. He does not love as you do. He can not. 

This_ one does, mellon nin. This one does. His heart is greater than any I have known._

His body will fail, his mind will break, his heart will cease. He is young and noble now, but he will grow old and weak, and the years will wear on him like water upon stone. Is he worthy of your love, Arwen, and of your life? 

"He is worthy," she whispered and dropped her hand from Legolas' face. "And you will come to love him too Legolas. Galadriel put a shadow upon you to journey to Rivendell because she understood that you play some role in Estel's future as well and it was time that your paths cross. You will journey a common road in the time to come."

"Nay, I will not love him, for I will not risk what you risk in doing so. It is folly to love a mortal, Arwen. And it pains me beyond measure that you have so quickly given over to this foolishness, that you willingly offer yourself torment."

"Time shall tell us who is right," Arwen said serenely, and though he had not ever met the Lady of Light, he imagined the warm knowing that filled Arwen's eyes might be familiar if he did ever stand before Galadriel. And it made him very uneasy when he contemplated the mortal sitting beyond the cave entrance.

_*_

To be continued…


End file.
